Member Of Parliament for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan

December 03, 2015

Providing Constituent Support

One of the most important functions of a member of Parliament is to provide effective constituency support services. This means helping you navigate government processes. If you have a problem dealing with the federal government, we can sometimes help you address it.

Within a week after the election, my full constituency support team was up and running, serving the needs of the riding — even without an office. And I am glad that many of you have already been in touch about various areas where you need our help.

Since that time, we have identified a location for our constituency office to serve you more efficiently. Once open, it will be in the three-storey glass office building beside the Sherwood Park Mall, just east of the TD branch. We are very pleased with the opportunities that will come with this location. However, while the space is well suited to our needs, substantial renovations are required before it will be ready.

Until those renovations are complete, our full team will still be up and running and able to assist you, but working primarily off-site. The best way to get in touch with us is by e-mail, at garnett.genuis@parl.gc.ca. E-mail is preferred, but you can also reach my constituency assistant, Daniel Schow, by phone at 587-337-7451.

When it comes to constituency services, our main role is to help people understand government processes and act as an advocate along the path to problem resolution. However, an MP’s office cannot help with everything. There are some areas where hard and fast rules prevent us from achieving a desired outcome. In many cases, there are processes in place that must be observed. We cannot bend rules and we cannot arrange for anyone to skip vital steps in an application process. But we can help you get the information you need and we can advocate for you within the existing rules.

To better serve you, we are designing our office space to hold regular constituency roundtables to discuss key issues and your ideas. If you would like to participate in some of our upcoming roundtables, please get in touch with the office, and we will add you to our contact list.

We will also be setting up regular office hours at a location in Fort Saskatchewan so that constituents in and around that area will be able to access constituency services very close to home on a regular basis.

Once renovations are complete, we will be holding an open house in both Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan so you can meet our team and check out the spaces we are using.

I look forward to serving in the coming years as your member of Parliament. As we cross into the holiday season, I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.

Garnett Genuis is the member of Parliament for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan. He can be contacted by e-mail at garnett.genuis@parl.gc.ca. Genuis was first elected in October 2015.